d the soldier lying dead upon the ground.
But to my utter amazement, there was the fellow yet on his horse, and,
like John Gilpin of old, going,

"Like an arrow swift
Shot by an archer strong."

He had a small gad, or switch, in his right hand, with which he was
belaboring his horse every jump, and the upshot of the matter was, he
reached and disappeared in the woods beyond, without a scratch, so far
as any of us on our side ever knew. How my shot happened to miss that
man is just one of the most unaccountable things that ever happened to
me in my life. I was perfectly cool and collected at the time, and my
nerves were steady as iron; he was a splendid mark, at close range, and
I took a deadly aim. And then to think that all our other fellows
missed him too! It was certainly a thing that surpasses all
comprehension.

At the time I am now writing these lines, a little over half a century
has passed away since this incident occurred, and it will here be
recorded that now I am sincerely thankful that I failed to kill that
man. Considering his marvelous escape on this occasion, the presumption
is strong that he lived through the war, married some good woman, and
became the father of a family of interesting children, and likely some
one of his boys fought under the old flag in the Spanish-American
War,--so it is probably all for the best.

But,--how in the world did I happen to miss him?

Only a few minutes after this incident I experienced the closest call
(so far as can be stated with certainty) that befell me during my
service. On this day it so happened that Co. D was assigned a position
on the extreme right of the skirmish line. This was not the regulation
place for the company in the regimental line, and just how this came
about I don't know, but so it was. As the first sergeant of D, my
position was on the extreme right of the company, consequently I was
the right hand man of the whole skirmish line. We were continuing our
advance across the field where we came on the vedette just mentioned,
and all in high spirits. I had on a broad-brimmed felt hat, my
overcoat, and beneath that what we called a "dress-coat," with the ends
of my trouser legs tucked in my socks; was carrying my gun at a ready,
and eagerly looking for something to shoot at. There was a little bunch
of Confederates in the woods on our right that were sort of
"pot-shooting" at us as we were moving across the field, but we paid no
attention